MEMOIES OF KAOHJEL. 27

now that she has reached the goal, every thing fails her at
once—her protector, Victor, hope, courage. The child, thus
left to her own resources, sinks, faint and despairing, in a cor-
ner of the empress's salon. We may well say the empress
now, for on this very day the First Consul has resolved to ex-
change the life-consulship for a royal, imperial, hereditary,
and perpetual majesty. While Josephine, thus raised to the
height of honors, gives vent to her exultation, she hears the
"broken sobs of the disconsolate child. The empress turns her
head, and Genevieve is at her feet. Here begins the scene on
which hangs the fate of the chief dramatis personce, that of the
play itself, and the success of the debutante. The Jinale is
easily guessed. The emperor inaugurates his reign by an act
of clemency. So fair a day must be darkened by no cloud—
the captain and the Vende'en chief are forgiven.

The young actress had dressed the piece with strict atten-
tion ; the garb was the coarse one of the Vend^enne peasantr
girl, and certainly not calculated to conceal defects or set off
beauty in the wearer, yet the illusion was complete. There
were two stanzas' in her part, which, instead of singing, she
chanted, with the strangely moving intonations, the melopceia
which ten years later were to prove so effective in the " Mar-
seillaise," on the boards of the Theatre Frangais. It was evi-
dent that hers was no voice for singing, yet she threw such
feeling into the stanzas that it compensated the lack of vocal
powers. The following verse was the most applauded:

" J~e croquais encore 1' invoquer;
Vera moi soudain elJe s' avance,
Et du doigt semble m' indiquer
Une villa inconnue immense,
Un seal mot rorapit le silence
'Paris 1' et puis elle ajouta,
Comxne en reponse a ma priere,
' Vaa y seule*a pied—car c'est ia
Que ta pourras sanrer ton pere.' "

At the rehearsal, Bouffe", who was present, was much
struck with the singular mixture of strange qualities the d&-
butante presented'—a union of the sublime and the grotesque
—a casket, rough-hewn and unpolished, through which gleam-
ed a priceless gem. An undefined sense of something grandtoo